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I'm free to say whatever I like, if it's wrong or right it's alright

TSN Adds ESPN’s Slate of MLB Games to Schedule

TSN has announced that ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, Monday Night Baseball and Wednesday Night Baseball will air on TSN and TSN2 for the next eight seasons. TSN’s coverage will include over 75 games per season. As part of the deal TSN will also show ESPN’s Baseball Tonight program. TSN has shown Sunday Night Baseball since 2010.

TSN’s announcement comes a couple of weeks after Rogers announced it will carry over 300 games per season, including the All Star Game and playoffs, a month ago. This means Canadians will have access to around 400 Major League Baseball games per season. Sportsnet’s contract also ends after the 2021 season.

Be interesting to see what happens when Sportsnet has a game with the local feed on their schedule and ESPN picks it up as the Monday or Wednesday game. Or for the very rare Blue Jays game ESPN shows. Does one take precedence over the other or will both sports channels be showing the same game with different broadcasts?

Jays on Sportsnet would certainly take precedence. I think TSN had a random Monday or Wednesday game last season that was supposed to be on Sportsnet. IIRC, Sportsnet switched to show a different game.

TSN will not completely make up for the loss of the NHL with replacement content but the network seems determined to soften the blow as best as it can. You have to remember that TSN has made several announcements since the Rogers-NHL deal was announced:

I can also see the possibility of TSN/Bell introducing a package of Red Wings games broadcast from Windsor to Chatham-Kent much like the Sabres package in the Niagara region.

At the end of the day TSN has chosen to take a more financially responsible approach to running a sports network which I believe will pay off over the long term as Sportsnet will realize over time just how much they overpaid for the NHL package.

I agree about the overpaying aspect. The Sens don’t have the cachet—let alone the fanbase—of the other 2 franchises that are popular in their market (the Leafs and Habs). Making these new deals and benefiting from the CFL’s expansion helps BCE a lot, but it’s not gonna be the same as having lots of national NHL content. This new MLB TV deal could help the Red Sox, Mariners, Tigers and Twins reach their Canadian fans more easily.

I actually don’t think it will help Red Sox all that much. They already see the 18 games against the Blue Jays, Sportsnet picks up another 20 or so from NESN and they are on a dozen FOX/SNB games which is not being changed in this deal. So they already are seeing close to 50 before, maybe they get 60 now.

I think that number is a little low. Sportsnet usually shows 30-40 Sox games from NESN. Fox games no longer exist really, since FS1 is showing most of them now. The Sox can be on each broadcast around 10 times I think, so that’s potential 20 more games. Even if they have 25 games on TSN and 60 on SN (including Jays and Fox games), that’s over half of their games. And a nice bump.

The Sabres have paved the way for the Red Wings to do something they should’ve already been allowed to do since Windsor’s effectively part of Metro Detroit and is treated as such WRT territorial media rights. Too bad the CRTC won’t allow anyone even in Windsor itself to get FOX Sports Detroit.

It’ll be nice having the ESPN Monday and Wednesday games regularly available… I know Sportsnet sometimes happened to have those games but it would be one of the local broadcasts, I’d rather watch a telecast that’s a national one myself. RDS/RDS2 usually had many of the Monday and Wednesday games in the past but usually only once the NHL playoffs were over.